Over 1,000 drone sightings were reported last year. Have we passed peak ‘drone hysteria’?

Last August, a drone was spotted flying over a gas station in Inglewood, a city just south of downtown Los Angeles. The drone was operated by the Inglewood Police Department to gather aerial data over a crime scene, a practice not uncommon lately with law enforcement or emergency response crews.

In a bizarre turn of events, officers of the Los Angeles Police Department also were dispatched to the scene, but not to assist with the crime investigation. According to a report released by the Federal Aviation Administration, LAPD arrived on the scene and requested their Inglewood counterparts to bring down the drone, which was flying about 2 miles from a runway at the Los Angeles International Airport and could have posed a threat to incoming planes.

The FAA in November of 2014 began tracking “drone sightings,” in which a person or entity reports a drone in flight to the police or directly to the FAA, usually because they believe the drone is doing something illegal. Since then, the number of drone sightings has been on the rise. The FAA received reports of 1,303 drone sightings in 2015.

“The majority of these reports are ‘sightings.’ Only a few dozen are explicitly reported as ‘near misses’ or ‘near midair collisions,’ ” according to a report from The Academy of Model Aeronautics.

It is illegal for drones to fly too close to airplanes, helicopters and airports without giving proper notice, but according to the AMA, most drones that are reported to the police or FAA aren’t doing anything of concern from a safety standpoint.

Plus, these reports aren’t verified and, often, aren’t investigated. Brendan Schulman, DJI’s Vice President of Policy and Legal Affairs, says that the pilots or people on the ground reporting drone sightings often aren’t aware of the laws dictating where operators are and are not allowed to fly. “We want to ensure the public and policy makers put these reports in context,” he said.

For example, a report from February of 2015 lists a drone flying “in the vicinity of downtown Anchorage, Alaska,” which isn't illegal. In another report from April of 2015, a caller dialed 911 to report a drone 13 miles from Chicago Midway International Airport, flying “not high,” which is also not illegal. No air traffic was impacted.

“Reports like these do nothing for public sentiment,” said Colin Snow, founder of Skylogic Research. “It’s drone hysteria.”

Drone sighting reports increased in number at the same time that drone sales began to surge. The Consumer Electronics Association estimated that 700,000 drones shipped in the U.S. in 2015, a 63% increase over 2014 shipments. The FAA estimates 2.5 million drones will be sold in 2016 (that estimate grows to 7 million drones in 2020).

But, though drone sales continue to rise month-over-month, the number of drone sightings tracked by the FAA has actually decreased from its peak of 185 in August of 2015 to 93 in January 2016.

One reason for this is that in September of 2015, the FAA launched a campaign called “No Drone Zone.” The campaign was intended to clarify that it would be illegal to fly drones over events relating to Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S., but it also spread awareness of the various dangers of flying a drone.

Then in October, the FAA announced that drone owners would have to register as a way to expose people to rules for flying drones, like flying under 400 feet and away from airports without approval. More than 406,000 people have registered as a drone operator with the FAA since the registry went live in December 2015.

“It’s encouraging to see the numbers of sightings dropping in spite of the fact that the number of [drones sold] is increasing dramatically,” said Rich Hanson, an Academy of Model Aeronautics Government and Regulatory Affairs representative.

An FAA spokesperson also suggested that winter weather in some parts of the country may have impacted the decrease in drone sightings.

Skylogic’s Snow said that improved drone technology is also helping to cut down on drones going rogue or flying near airports.

“More and more sophisticated drones from manufacturers like Yuneec and DJI are making it into the market that have geofencing,” he said.

Geofencing is a software feature that acts as a virtual barrier to prevent drones from flying over “no-fly-zones,” which are mostly airports. DJI released a software update that would prevent its drones from flying around Washington, D.C. in the wake of an incident where a drone crashed on White House grounds.

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